Baci di Dama - Lady's Kisses

Intrigued by a post on David Lebovitz's food blog I tried out Baci di Dama - Lady's kisses and have since added them to my list of favorite holiday cookies. The recipe mentioned in the post is by Terresa Murphy of La Cucina di Terresa.

Baci di Dama originate from the Piemonte region of northwestern Italy, an area surrounded on three sides by the Alps. Its capital, Torino, is known for its chocolate and hazelnuts which are considered to be among the best in the world.

Baci di Dama are two small hazelnut cookies held together by a layer of dark chocolate.
I used all-purpose flour and bittersweet chocolate when I made them a couple of weeks ago. They are truly delicious. I keep them in a cookie tin in the refrigerator so that the chocolate doesn't get soft.

Baci di Dama as part of my Holiday Tea offering

German Christmas Stollen

Stollen, a German Christmas fruit cake, is one of my fondest memories of my childhood in Germany. I remember my grandmother and mother baking huge "striezel" (often used as a synonym for stollen) the first week of December. Both would spend hours in the kitchen preparing ingredients, chopping nuts and cleaning raisins.

Many traditional German recipes call for currants and raisins, both candied lemon and orange peel and very often marzipan. I prefer to use only currants and equal amounts of lemon and orange peel.  Since I am not a fan of marzipan I always use my mother's recipe which doesn't call for it.

Ingredients:
4 cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp rum extract
1/8 tsp ground cardamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
2 eggs
6 oz butter, cold, cut into small pieces
8 oz Quark (similar to farmer's cheese, available at German gourmet food stores and at some Whole Foods markets)
1 cup currants, cleaned
4.5 oz ground almonds
1 oz each of candied orange and lemon peel

• Preheat oven to 500° F, then reduce heat to 375° F.
• Mix flour and baking powder and sift into a large bowl. Make a well in the center.
• Add sugar, vanilla extract, salt, almond and rum extracts, cardamon, nutmeg and two eggs. Use some of the flour from the side of the bowl and knead everything into a thick dough.
• Place butter, Quark, currants, candied lemon and orange peel on top of dough and knead everything together.You may add a little bit of flour if the dough is too sticky.
• Divide the dough into two balls and shape each ball into a log.
• Place both stollen on a baking sheet lined with baking paper.
• Bake at 375° F for 50-60 minutes. Brush hot stollen with 4 tbsp of melted butter and immediately sift powdered sugar over top to cover completely. Let cool.
• To store, wrap stollen tightly in aluminum foil and store in refrigerator. It also freezes well wrapped in aluminum foil.

Lebkuchenkipferl

What would the holiday season be without homemade Christmas cookies? Helping my grandmother and mother bake a variety of cookies was something I eagerly anticipated every year. Scents of cinnamon, anise, nutmeg and cloves wafting through the air signaled the beginning of this special time of the year. My favorites were spritz cookies dipped on one end into dark chocolate, vanilla kipferl, cinnamon stars, and speculoos. No matter where I have lived since I left Germany, I have always baked at least two or three of my childhood favorites for the holidays. The following recipe is an adaptation of the traditional vanilla kipferl, using a a gingerbread spice blend (Lebkuchengewuerz) to give it a beautiful gingerbread flavor.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp gingerbread spice mix
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
 3/4 cup ground almonds

• Preheat oven to 350° F and line two cookie sheets with baking paper. 
• Measure 1/2 tsp of the gingerbread spice mix and set aside.
• In a medium-sized bowl mix butter, sugar and remaining spice mix until well blended. Add sifted flour and ground almonds, mix well, and place into refrigerator for 30 minutes. 
• Remove dough from refrigerator. Using 1 tbsp dough at a time, form crescent shapes and place one inch apart and baking sheet.
• Bake for approximately 12 minutes, rotating the baking sheet halfway through. 
• Take 1/2 tsp of the reserved gingerbread spice mix and mix with 1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar. Sift mixture over still warm kipferl. Let cool completely and store in an airtight container.  

To make your own spice blend, try the following recipe:
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground cardamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground anise seed
1/8 tsp ground fennel seed

Mix thoroughly. Makes about 2 tbsp.

Cinnamon and Cardamon Almond Macaroons

This German macaroon recipe (not to be confused with French macaroons) comes from an old cookbook which my grandmother used all of her life.

I adapted the recipe a bit, adding cinnamon and cardamon which add just a bit of holiday flavor.

Ingredients:
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
5 oz fine white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp almond extract
6 oz ground almonds (almond meal)
2 oz flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cardamon
whole hazelnuts for decoration

• Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until very stiff. 
• Slowly add sugar, vanilla and almond extracts to egg whites. 
• Mix flour, almond meal, cinnamon and cardamon and gently fold into egg white mixture.
• Line baking sheet with baking paper and place small ball egg white mixture on sheet (I used a melon baller to measure. 
• Place on one hazelnut in the middle of each cookie.
• Bake for about 30 minutes, rotating the sheet after 15 minutes. 
• Let cool completely and store in cookie tin.

Makes 30 - 40 macaroons.

Mulling Spices

Orange slices cut into 1/8-inch rounds

Every year I try to come up with a small, handmade gift for my colleagues. Previous years saw me making lavender soap and lavender bath salts and baking German "Weihnachtsstollen" (German Christmas stollen). What would it be this year? As I looked through old issues of various cooking magazines I came across a recipe for homemade mulling spices in the December 2012 issue of
Food & Wine.

Orange and ginger slices drying in the oven

Dried orange and ginger slices, cinnamon, cloves, star anise, black peppercorns and allspice berries

The ingredients seemed easy enough to find and I trusted my oven with drying the orange and ginger slices as described in the recipe. I decided to double the amount (so that one gift was enough for about 2 quarts of wine or apple cider) and to fill the mulling spices into clear cellophane bags.

Recipe: Mulling Spices - Food & Wine December 2012

Mulling Spices in clear cellophane bags

I won't be handing out my gifts until December 21, so in the meantime I have stored the spices and fruit in a cool, dark place. Once it's time to fill the bags, I will place "To Use" instructions into the bags, tie them shut, and attach a "From the Kitchen of " stamped gift tag to each bag.

Thanksgiving 2011

In the past, Thanksgiving overseas was always an adventure. Would we be able to get a turkey, sweet potatoes and cranberries? While living in Croatia, I drove every November to the airbase in Aviano, Italy, which a huge shopping list of turkeys and trimmings for our community back in Zagreb. I enjoyed the drive to Italy, admiring the beautiful mountains right behind Aviano. It was a long day, but definitely worth it. Everyone was happy to pick up their turkeys, sweet potatoes, green beans and fresh cranberries the next day from my office (which resembled a mini grocery store).

Belgrade was less adventurous, since we did have a small commissary in the embassy which organized a special order right in time for the holidays.

So this being our first year back in the U.S. and one of our daughters (the one who likes meat) in college on the West Coast, we decided to have a vegetarian Thanksgiving. I looked through my collection of recipes and old magazines and came up with this delicious menu for five (my father-in-law and sister-in-law joined us from Charlottesville, VA):

Shaved Vegetable Salad

Food and Wine, November 2011
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/shaved-vegetable-salad)

Pumpkin Stuffed with Vegetables

Gourmet, November 2007
 http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/2000s/2007/11/pumpkin-stuffed-vegetable-stew

Apple Cranberry Pie

Martha Stewart Living, November 2011
http://www.marthastewart.com/857649/sky-high-apple-cranberry-pie?search_key=Apple%20Cranberry%20pie%20recipe

Polly's Pumpkin Pie

(a delicious pumpkin pie my sister-in-law prepared)